Inhoudsopgave

I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to with anybody, and I hope you will be a big support for me.

This is the first sentence that Anne Frank entrusted to her diary. This diary, with the title "Het Achterhuis" (the Back House), has been translated into more than sixty-five languages and has been read by tens of millions of people all around the world. Anne Frank kept her diary from June 12th, 1942 until August 1st, 1944. From the 6th of July 1942 on, she and her family went into hiding in a backroom of her fatherís office on the Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam. They had to go into hiding for the German occupying powers, that deported Jewish inhabitants of the Netherlands to German extermination camps in Poland from the summer of 1942 on.

In her diary Anne writes about the period she spent in hiding in the back house and about the many frightening, distressed, amorous and rebellious moments she went through there. Anneís diary is the worldís most known eyewitness account of the persecution of the Jews, and besides that it gives a glimpse into the world of experience and the train of thought of a girl in her puberty.

Anne died from typhus in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen in February or March 1945. Her father, Otto Frank, made sure her diary was published. Anne Frank, a girl with her own look on life, became a worldwide symbol of the persecution of the Jews after her death. For many, the name Anne Frank is a synonym for the tragedy that happened to many millions of Jewish people during the years of World War II.

This article sketches an image of the life of Anne Frank. Although Anne Frank died in 1945, her memory lives on until this date. Even today Anne Frank and her diary play an important educative role. This article consequently describes in which way this commemoration became so world-renowned.

Definitielijst

concentration camp

Closed camp where people are being held captive that are considered to be anti- social, enemies of the state, criminal or unwanted individuals. These groups mostly do not get a fair trial or are condemned to doing time in a camp.

Jews

Middle Eastern people with own religion that lived in Palestine. They distinguished themselves by their strong monotheism and the strict observance of the Law and tradition. During World War 2 the Jewish people were ruthlessly persecuted and annihilated by the German Nazis. . An estimated 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated.